Slow like Honey
by amluv
Summary: Shaw makes a discovery of sorts.


**Slow Like Honey**

It was a miracle we reached the safe house alive. And although I didn't come out of the encounter entirely unscathed thanks to the bullet hole in my left shoulder, compliments of Decima's blonde terminator, we all made it out alive. As much as I hate to admit it, Root was right. If I had taken my secret identity more seriously as well as the true threat Samaritan presented, I wouldn't be bleeding all over Harold's very expensive sofa, nor would I have placed the only people I've ever really cared about in danger as well.

Root eases my jacket off of my shoulders. She hadn't said a word since the bullets went flying all over the place. I think in all the time I've known her I've never really seen her pissed off. Her face is hard in a way that seems it shouldn't. I find that I don't particularly care for the way she's eyeballing me at the moment, eyes like amber and full of fire.

She keeps her eyes trained on me and I can feel something inside me stirring and it's not the kind of stirring that leads to the type of arousal I usually feel after a good firefight and an available body that's willing and able to soothe whatever ails. "Root?" Her name spills from lips like a question but just what it is exactly I'm asking I'm not exactly sure. She still doesn't say anything, just looks at me and I'm starting to find it both unnerving and annoying. She's still giving me a death stare as she helps me lift up my top. She's none too gentle and I can't stifle the grunt that the pain from my bullet wound cause. I don't want to give her the satisfaction of knowing it really hurts.

The only time she takes her eyes off of me is to inspect the wound. I let my own eyes follow her movements as she reaches over to the table to grab gauze pads and the bottle of antiseptic alcohol. I continue to watch her as she stands up and crane my neck to trail her as she walks behind me. Root roughly shoves my head back forward and had it not been for the fact I was currently bleeding all over the place, I would have taken a hard shot straight into her ribs.

Root pours the antiseptic directly into my wound and the sting is far too intense for me not to shout out in excruciating pain. "JESUS CHRIST!" I scream out, ready to jump up and take a massive swing at Root, but she forcibly restrains me and continues to clean my the oozing hole in my shoulder. "And they say I'm the one with a horrible bedside manner. What the hell is wrong with you Root?" I hiss at her and still she says nothing.

I know that the bullet went through and through so thankfully there wasn't a slug left to dig out. Once Root cleaned the wound, she picked up a suture kit and started to thread the needle. She kneeled down in front of me so she could close up the hole the bullet left in the front of my shoulder.

"Do you even know what you're doing?" I ask through gritted teeth looking at her.

I don't know what I was expecting by way of response but I hadn't expected to be met with the coldness I found in her face. Root looked nothing like the woman I'm use to seeing. There was none of the usual playfulness in her expression. None of that all too easy flirtiness that slid from her lips that annoys me but that I secretly enjoys. All of that had left her face and all I see now is a stranger staring back at me. I felt an urge to bring my fingers up to her face as if that would somehow bring back the warmth that I'm so use to seeing but I can't bring myself to do it so I just turn my head and look away.

I feel my own anger surging, after all wasn't I the one who was wounded. Didn't that earn me a teensy bit of consideration? Who the hell did she think she was treating me this way? My mind tries to focus on something else other than the weird energy in the room. I wanted to think of something other than her indifference or whatever the hell this was. I tried to think of anything else other than the pulling of thread tautly through tissue torn asunder by lead. I try to forget the feeling stirring inside me, hanging low and dangerous.

At some point I realize that Root is now sitting behind me and taping a bandage in place. There are a few moments of tension before I feel lips, warm and supple graze the surface of the flesh caught between my shoulder and my neck. Ghost-like kisses trailing up my neck. My eyes flutter shut and I relish the sensation of Root's lips on my skin as her mouth ends its journey with a flourish of her tongue enveloping my earlobe.

I let my eyes slowly flit open again only to be met with an all too familiar look. The look that makes me waiver. The one that makes me question everything that I've ever known. The one that makes me wish I were remotely normal. The one that makes want to be something that I know I could never be.

Her eyes had finally softened and became warm again. Eyes that remind me honey, sweet and thick with some unnamed thing I can never quite fully comprehend. I get lost in them though. I get lost in her and I finally just let my self sink into the sticky trap Root has set for me and I do it gladly. For the first time in my life outside of combat I just let myself go without thought or consequence of what happens next.

This time I do reach up to touch her face bringing her close to me as I kiss her with a tenderness I didn't even know I was capable of having. Root is mindful of my wound and works her hands everywhere but there. Every touch deliberate and purposeful. I can feel her handprints all over me. Marking me. Claiming me. It was all new and completely unfamiliar to us. Before, the sex was all about who could take who the farthest. Who could stretch the limits to the boundaries without taking it too far. But this, this was something completely different. This was pure emotion oozing out from every touch; every kiss; and every unsaid word that has ever passed between us. It was complete and unfettered access to all of the things we hid from the outside world.

Root casually cast it aside my bra leaving me only in my tact pants. She never takes her eyes off of me and I feel an icy hotness deep inside of me. My thoughts are reckless and my mouth dry because I realize that I want something that I didn't even know, up until this very moment, actually existed and I wanted it in a desperate kinda way. She senses it too, I can see it as the corner of her lip curls up and she bends her head down and takes possession of lips and then the rest of my body as we slowly sink into the plush material of Harold's couch.

Like I said before, this was different than all the other times we've gone horizontal. And as much as I enjoy all of the…unconventional things we incorporated into sex, this slow burning, kink-free thing we're doing right now is a whole kinda other animal. My body is on fire and I can't get enough of it. My mind is just swimming because I just realized that Root had taken every piece of cloth off of her and me and I'm completely lost in sensations created from our bodies melding into each other. I let my hands freely roam the tight muscles of a strong body until I feel Root's fingers inside of me, working their way back and forth, back and forth. I'm lost in the rhythm, the meter and time of every thrust. I can feel the arrival of my orgasm and as it comes, as I cum, I hold onto Root for dear life and we both ride out the surge of our emotional flood…together.

The room is quite now that both my and Root's breathing have evened out. I feel oddly content because I'm pretty sure I just made love for the first time ever my life. The thought of it makes me smile and I involuntarily place a kiss atop Root's head and hold her a tad tighter even though a bit of pain shoots up through my shoulder. I feel her tighten her grip on me too and that brings another unbidden smile to my face. Root shifted on the couch so that she was now facing me, supporting her weight on her forearms. She pushes back an errant strand of my hair out of my face and pins me with eyes like honey, "I won't lose you too Sameen."

Those were the only six words she had spoken in the last three hours. It was said so softly had it not been for the fact she was looking at me I would have sworn that I had imagined the whole thing. I let those six words sink in and with every ounce of conviction I could muster, I kiss her sweet, sweet lips again.

"You won't."


End file.
